


Edge

by Winterflower



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: I Blame Tumblr, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 13:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterflower/pseuds/Winterflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will injures his hand. Hannibal shaves Will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edge

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the prompt on http://unionjill.tumblr.com/.  
> Also, I don't shave, so all the details are probably inaccurate.  
> Thanks for reading!

 

A shot. The volume died like a candle snuffed out with wet fingers. And then someone turned down the speed dial of the universe. His mind was stuck in a quagmire while his body fell and hit the hardwood floor. Another shot, piercing, bright white sound. Then the skin below his ribs burst into pink and purple confetti. Pain was the screaming of cells, a colour of red. And the warmth was spreading beneath him like a sea of spilled paint.

There was a third shot. And then someone turned the volume back on.

\---------------

_“FBI! Open the door.”_

The hinges give in, the door ajar.

No need for anyone to open it anymore. He heard boots and guns, the comforting click of metal that promised safety and security and death. Someone knelt next to him, a hand applied pressure on his shoulder.

_“We need an ambulance!”_

Dark hair, the faint smell of strawberry, leather and latex gloves. It was Katz. He had always admired her steady voice, a lighthouse on rough seas. But today it had a foreign shade to it, a bright and piercing monochrome. Pain flushed through him like hot metal slicing through butter. He thought he might be dead already.

She squeezed his hand.

_“Will? Will? I’m losing him, Jack”_

“ _Where is the damn ambulance?”_

The pressure was steady, but there was a lighthouse somewhere far. Its lonely light searched the unending sea.  When it hit him, he knew he would die.

Then darkness flowed over him like a dark river in this room of lights.

\---------------

In the clinical fluorescent lighting, the frailty of the body was mesmerizing.  The harsh light etched out the blue veins in his body, little blood rivers running beneath the skin. An artist- though Hannibal would never call himself that- whose material was flesh and whose technique was murder, could appreciate the poetic scenery that unfolded in the expensive, private hospital room where Will Graham was being treated. Jack Crawford did have a sense of responsibility after all.

\-----------------

In feverish dreams, everything had a delusional quality.

_Lennox had a gun. Hidden. Of course he did._

But five minutes before the first shot, the situation had seemed a lot simpler.

_“I need a confession, Will. The bastard is going to lawyer up.”_

_“Then let me go in there. Alone, Jack.”_

Offering himself like a lamb to the slaughter had given him peace. Self-sacrifice always had that treacherous quality, the feeling of accomplishment once one crossed the proverbial Rubicon. He had waded into the Rubicon with no hesitation.

The nightmares in which he cohabited with Lennox’s rape-murder victims had been plenty of motivation. It always began in the little wood outside his house, his feet firmly planted in the rotting foliage( for some reason it was always autumn in this nightmare), his eyes resting on the house, a ship on the water. Then the bodies emerged from behind the trees dragging their bound feet behind. Their eyeless faces looked at him, white decomposed fingers reached for his face. Closed around his neck.

_“I just want to talk.”_

That is all.

 

\--------------------

If only death was so clean and peaceful, Hannibal thought when he opened the door. The morphine laced Will’s sleep with an illusion of peace. The hospital must have been keeping him well-medicated. Like this: naked torso covered in bandages, arms in a cast, skin pale, he looked almost dead. Only the reassuring beat of the heart rate monitor claimed otherwise.

Two vases stood beside the bed. One was from Alana and the other one from the crime lab. He suspected Katz. He lowered the duffel bag he was carrying and sat on the chair next to Will. A pale hand lay on the cover, bruised from an inexpertly fitted IV. Lecter drew his fingers on Will’s chin overgrown with stubble and pressed his finger on the man’s lips.

 

He stirred. Blue eyes confronted his brown once. He held love and a lifetime in those irises. Cruelty, mercy, even, held hidden behind the violent brown. But at this moment he felt himself completely spiritually naked, captivated by the fragility of the man lying before him.

“Hannibal?”

Just as the words left his mouth, Hannibal’s lips pressed on his mouth. A chaste kiss that spoke of things past and perhaps promised more.

“Do they know?” he asked. At this moment such an inconsequential thing seemed most important to him. Hannibal kissed him again.

\-----------------

Summer had swallowed spring by the time he was allowed to leave the white confines of the ward. His skin had absorbed the sallow whiteness of the walls and his stubble had grown into an unruly beard. He wore the deranged look like an old sweater, loosely draped but ever present. In the mirror he saw many things, an agent whose name was probably Will Graham, a boy whose name had at some point been Will Graham. His reflection took him back to the smell of tar and hemp rope, because he imagined that to an onlooker he must have looked like one of the world weary men who chiseled and pounded on the boats alongside his father. A man who no longer belonged to Will, but Biloxi, Mobile, Erie, places that flickered in and out of memory.

He rummaged in the drawers beside the bed and retrieved a small black bag Alana had brought from Wolf Trap. She had avoided his eyes ( _“I’m glad you’re alive, Will”_ ), avoided his presence whether real or remembered ( _“I shouldn’t stay here any longer”_ ), fled from his madness like an animal from a wild fire. He had to admire her self-preservation instinct. He replaced Alana on one of the shelves of his mind and took out a cheap disposable razor and some foam.

The world felt slightly out of focus when he operated with the left arm. His right arm was still in a sling, the humerus shattered by a bullet. He managed to distribute the foam on his face, but operating the sharp metal proved to be beyond him. The razor slipped. A little droplet of blood oozed out.

“Allow me.”

He hadn’t even heard the door open. And yet there he stood, in a three piece suit and carrying a duffel bag. He did not wait for Will to respond. He never did. The duffel bag fell on the floor and a steady, cold arm pushed him on bed. Hannibal pried the cheap razor from his fingers.

From the duffel bag, he produced a barber’s razor that gleamed in the harsh fluorescence of the hospital. The metal had a thirst for blood.

The razor moved through the lather like a seduction. Hannibal’s fingers touched the bones on his chin, brushed his collarbone, settled into the little nook beneath his Adam’s apple. Will shuddered. This instrument hadn’t been played in a long time.

“It’s been a long time,” he said hoarsely.

“It has.” Hannibal agreed and pressed the edge of the razor to the skin. He saw the pulse, a little life, beating beneath the skin of the neck. _How easy_ , he thought, _just one slip_. This man, Will Graham, was a lover and a destroyer to him, all in one. The contradiction both confused and intrigued him, like a bottle of cheap wine that was better than the most expensive Sauvignon. He sealed his work with a kiss on the neck, drew his tongue to the collarbone, felt Will’s muscles tense in response.

Will clutched Hannibal’s tie with his uninjured hand and pulled the man closer. Their lips met in a hungry kiss. Hannibal’s tongue asked permission to possess him fully. Will’s arm rested on Hannibal’s chest. His hunger for intimacy was reaching hysteria, he begged for more, but Hannibal withdrew, with a smile. Lust was the art of the patient.

“Now, Will, you have to let me finish my work.”

Words whispered into the nape of the neck.

The razor slid below his chin.

 “I’ve been looking at the crime scene pictures from the Ripper cases again.”

“I thought I prescribed no work only rest.”

Hannibal flicked his wrist with a little more force than necessary. The razor drew a droplet of blood.

“Well you know how it is. An idle mind is a devil’s playground and all that.”

Indeed. If Will only knew the kind of devil that played in Hannibal’s mind.

He drew the razor on the other side and wiped the lather off, taking away the hair, and leaving the throat exposed.

The bare skin of the neck was an erotic conundrum. This was not the time or the place and yet it was the time and the place. He bit into the flesh, nipped at the earlobe, his lips brushed his throat. He smelled lemongrass and disinfectant, and hunger, fear and abandonment. Will sighed.

“I think-I think I’m coming close to understanding him.” Will muttered, his eyes closed. Hannibal stood beside him, waiting, the razor poised.

“Have you finished?” Will asked.

Hannibal placed the edge on the pale neck.

“Not quite yet,” he answered.

 


End file.
